Chapter Text
Arthur is doing the dishes when he hears Matthew start to cry.
He drops what he’s doing (only wincing a little as he hears crockery break somewhere in the sudsy sink) and races through the living room to where the front door is open, letting in the warm late summer air. “Matthew? Lad, what’s wrong?”
He opens the storm door to step out onto the porch, wiping his wet hands off on the thighs of his jeans before he crouches, peering worriedly at the boy sitting on the front steps. “Are you hurt?”
Alfred had a doctor’s appointment today for his allergy shot, and Francis had offered to take him. Their neighborhood is quiet and safe and the weather today is beautiful, so Arthur had told Matthew he could wait outside for his brother and papa to get home, as long as he stayed in the yard. Matthew, dear child that he was, had readily agreed, taken his after-school snack and tupped out to sit on the porch.
Matthew shakes his head, crying reduced to sniffles as he tries to wipe his eyes. “I-it’s nothing, daddy…”
Arthur frowns a little, putting a hand on Matthew’s head. “It’s hardly ‘nothing’ if it made you cry, poppet. What is it?”
“W-well,” Matthew sniffs again, then points out into the yard. Arthur looks, and sees a fat gray squirrel sitting at the base of their dogwood tree, munching happily on Matthew’s biscuit. “It grabbed it…”
When Francis returns home with Alfred, it’s to the rather comical sight of his husband halfway up the dogwood tree, wielding a hand trowel like a sword and wearing a pot over his head, being pelted by nuts from a very irate squirrel as Matthew stands at the base of the tree and cheers him on.
Alfred runs to see what the excitement is, but Francis just shakes his head and goes inside to start dinner. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to know.